Monday, October 2, 2017

Mjolnir Book Tour and Giveaway for a $100 Best Buy Gift Card or a Replica of Thor's Hammer!

Mjolnir

by Brian James

Genre: Urban Fantasy

The Viking gods have been banished from Asgard by Odin. Today they make the best of life on Earth. Thor is a professional athlete, Freya a prostitute, and Loki sells cheap products on QVC. Lurking in the background of their lives is a prophecy; one that declares that their time is at an end. Ragnarok is about to throw the gods into a state of civil war, and the one who controls the hammer of Thor may be able to change the arc of destiny.

When Trent Adams was a child he never wanted to grow up to be anything but a professional football player. These men who played this most violent of games, were, to him anyway, the personification of every superhero come to life. His mom was less enthusiastic about his passion. She heard the stories about the dirty locker room conversations, the lighting of bodily gases, and how they considered giving wedgies to members of the debate team as a form of high comedy. Mother Adams considered these activities beneath her nice, middle class son. Despite her reservations she supported him anyway while quietly hoping that Trent would wind up in a career that involved a white lab coat and the words “Dr. Adams.”

His mother’s dream of a doctor in the family died a slow painful death over the years as it became obvious that Trent was that rare breed of person who was perfectly suited, both physically and mentally, for professional athletics -- football in particular. He had the type of gritty toughness and confidence in his own indestructibility that suggested he might recreationally drink acid or poke an ill-tempered bison with a stick just for fun.

The American Medical Association (along with any reputable med school) may have wanted nothing to do with him, but the Minnesota Vikings recognized these traits. They invested a lot of hope in him when they traded up in the draft to get him as the eleventh player taken in the first round of the NFL draft.

From the moment he stepped on the Viking’s practice field he was the type of courageous leader that the team had been lacking since the days of Fran Tarkenton. The Vikings were tickled purple and Trent was living his dream.

Yes, all his life, Trent wanted to be a professional football player. That was until this moment. Three minutes from half-time in a game against the Oakland Raiders during an unforgiving downpour, Trent was panicking in the huddle… and it had nothing to do with the weather. This was the first time in his life that he wished he had listened to his mother and gone into podiatry.

“Byron, you line up with Smith and double team that son of a bitch!” Trent’s voice crackled with panic and fear as he shouted instructions in the huddle.

He looked over at the Raiders huddle. All of them were clustered together getting their defensive play ready for the next snap. All of them except for number 74. Thor just stood outside the huddle and stared back at him. Trent could feel Thor’s icy blue eyes piercing him. There was a dispassionate sort of hate and malice in the stare. It sent the clear message that Trent would soon have a greater understanding and appreciation for the whole “lamb to slaughter” cliché. Those eyes also expressed a sort of casual ease with violence that was unnerving. It was the look someone would expect to see if they found themselves face to face with a person like Heinrich Himmler or a dental school graduate.

Trent couldn’t take it anymore. If it was just the look, he would spend the rest of the game (and probably the day) completely creeped out…but he would get over it. There was history behind that look though. Thor was a man whose NFL career was built on the broken bodies of his opponents. This was a guy who ended careers and on a few controversial occasions, lives as well. The look combined with the body count credited to Thor’s ledger was too much for him to deal with.

“It’s just a game, man!” Trent screamed over at him, “What’s wrong with you?!” The panicked quarterback started doing some quick math in his head. He was trying to do the sort of fractions where some of the numbers got cancelled out. Specifically he wanted to make sure number 74 was the one removed from the equation.

He had assigned a 250 lb. tight end along with a 320 lb. tackle to protect him from the six foot four, 280 lb. sociopath. His brain reached the conclusion that the Vikings may be in need of a new tight end and another offensive tackle when the play was over. He needed more guys on Thor if he was going to live through the final minutes of the first half. Once the second quarter was over Trent planned to sneak off quietly during halftime. The team was on its own after that.

“Moe, line up as far behind me as you need to get a good run at the guy, then while Smith and Byron have Thor occupied, hit him with everything you’ve got! Hit him hard…and for Christ’s sake, try to hit him somewhere that breaks! I’ll pay the fine if you cripple him, hell, I’ll give you a BMW if you blow out his knee!”

The play clock was ticking down and Trent would have to line the team up for a play soon. Before he broke the huddle, he grabbed his lineman by the facemask and shouted right into the man’s helmet “Smith, I want you to chop block that bastard. Break his freakin’ leg if you have to!! Just keep him off of me…Do you understand?”

The rookie nodded enthusiastically back at him.

“Go get him!!!” Trent smacked the side of the lineman’s helmet as he gave this last order in the huddle.

The offense and defense faced each other again. The Raiders had gotten the better of this situation just about every time they lined up. The last few times Thor had hit him, Trent could feel his organs moving about independently inside his torso. It was as if they were floating in a glass of water that was being shaken. He had also coughed up blood the last couple of times. There was not a lot more he could take and he knew it.

Trent began to yell out the signals “Blue thirty-seven, Blue thirty-seven.”

Above the din of his own voice and the trash talking that was going on between the linemen, he could hear a low, animal growl coming from his left.

“DOWN…SET…”

The growl became louder with every moment. There was no more taunting between the linemen, just the sound of a low guttural snarl and the occasional whimper from one of his offensive linemen.

Trent looked to his left and saw Thor’s head was up and he was staring straight at him. The shadow from the heavy cage of his facemask obscured the features of Thor’s face. All Trent could see were his hate-filled blue eyes glowing out from the darkness and a plumb of red hair exploding out from under his helmet.

“HUT…HUT HUUUUTTTTT…” In a final moment of unexpected weakness and frailty his voice abandoned him and became more of a mouse like squeak then the confident, clear tones of a gridiron leader.

“HIKE!”

It happened very quickly. He felt the leather football hitting his hands as the center snapped it to him. He became very aware of the sound of his own footsteps on the wet Coliseum grass. Some obscure thought about the value of last rites flashed through his head. At that point something exploded in Trent’s gut. For a quick moment he saw what looked like snow on a television screen, and then there was nothing but blackness.

“Hooooooooly shi…” the announcer screamed.

“John, you can’t say that on the air, remember the network,” Al Michaels said in a joking, almost condescending way.

“Sorry about that Al, but Holy Mother of God, WOW…I mean, well…WOW…did you see that hit!!!”

“I felt that hit, John, and the quarterback is down again. What a crushing sack number 74 had just laid on him. After the abuse Trent Adams has taken today...I don’t think he’ll be getting up anytime soon.”

“I think you’re right, Al. He hasn’t moved anything in quite some time, and they still haven’t cleaned the stuff that came out his nose off of his face. I think he may be hurt pretty bad. I can’t remember ever seeing a defensive line push an offensive line around like this before.”

Brian James is a professional writer whose work has appeared in a number of mainstream publications. In the past, he has written articles for the Detroit Free Press, The World Poker Tour magazine, Classic Rock Magazine, Audi’s various publications, and a score of websites. While working with the World Poker Tour and a subsidiary website, Brian was also responsible for celebrity and player interviews.

23 comments:

I found myself wanting to read this after the excerpt. Not my typical kind of read but I'm definitely going to read this. Don't really have a favorite but Thor would be my choice.Carol LLucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com

About Me

Susan M. Heim is a writer and editor,
specializing in parenting, multiples, Christian and women’s issues. Her books
include It’s Twins! Parent-to-Parent Advice from Infancy Through
Adolescence; Boosting Your Baby’s Brain Power; Oh, Baby! 7 Ways a Baby Will
Change Your Life the First Year;Twice the Love: Stories of
Inspiration for Families with Twins, Multiples and Singletons; and numerous Chicken Soup
for the Soul books. Her
articles have appeared in many books, magazines and websites. Visit her author site at www.susanheim.com.